X-Message-Number: 32156
From: Mark Plus <>
Subject: RE:  immortality projects can bring death closer
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:44:23 -0800
References: <>

John de Rivaz writes:


>An article in The Guardian, ostensibly about TV personality Clive James' 
attitude to global warming, has a great deal to say about the failure of 
cryonics to attract the 30% of the population who tell pollsters that they would
be interested.
>>>

>In 1973 the cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker proposed that the fear of 
death drives us to protect ourselves with "vital lies" or "the armour of 
character". We defend ourselves from the ultimate terror by engaging in 
immortality projects, which boost our self-esteem and grant us meaning that 
extends beyond death. More than 300 studies conducted in 15 countries appear to 
confirm Becker's thesis. When people are confronted with images or words or 
questions that remind them of death they respond by shoring up their worldview, 
rejecting people and ideas that threaten it, and increasing their striving for 
self-esteem.

>One of the most arresting findings is that immortality projects can bring death
closer. In seeking to defend the symbolic, heroic self that we create to 
suppress thoughts of death, we might expose the physical self to greater danger.
For example, researchers at Bar-Ilan University in Israel found that people who
reported that driving boosted their self-esteem drove faster and took greater 
risks after they had been exposed to reminders of death.


In other words, humans created "self-esteem" as a kind of magical thinking to 
manage their terror. Self-esteem doesn't sound that far removed mentally from 
the wearing of talismans to ward off evil.
 
Self-esteem can generate other problems as well:
 
The Trouble With Self-Esteem
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/03/magazine/the-trouble-with-self-esteem.html
 

I submit that the human population needs less self-esteem and other magical 
thinking about death (e.g., singularitarianism), and more engagement with 
finding technological solutions to the problem.
 
Mark Plus 		 	   		  
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